DIY Paper Staghorn Fern

While everyone has their talents, most of us can agree that we are all pretty much bad at one thing; taking care of plants. Lack of light, water, or humidity, you name it. Whatever skill it requires to keep some small green leaves alive for more than a couple weeks, we struggle at it.

For that reason, one of our favorite plants is the outdoor fern. Yes, they do require a bit of upkeep to grow luscious and large, but aside from that they’re pretty easy, exactly how we like them.

Still, we wanted to make the lives of fern-lovers even easier, which is what inspired this month’s paper plant, the Staghorn Fern.  We prefer our plants especially low-maintenance, which usually just means we end up making them out of paper. So there you have it, a pretty near perfect paper fern. Not just beautiful, but practical as well. We think you’re going to love it making it, love having it, and most importantly, love not having to worry about taking care of it. In other words, you’re welcome.

Materials

• Lightweight green cardstock paper
• Wire
• Moss
• Glue or Modge Podge
• White acrylic paint
• Wire cutters
• Staghorn Template
• spray bottle
• paintbrush

 Instructions

1. Print out the template for the leaves, and cut them out.
2. Lightly spray green colored papers with water.
3. Thin the acrylic paint with a small amount of water.
4. Apply watered down acrylic paint paper with a paintbrush while the painted paper is still wet (we painted our paper landscape orientation with horizontal strokes).
5. Let the newly painted paper dry.
6. Cut out 4-inch pieces of wire, each branch of your fern will need a wire. The amount you need will depend on how many leaves you give your fern.
7. Sandwich two pieces of painted dried paper with wire stem (about 2″ of wire exposed) and glue with mod podge or tacky glue (we brushed ours on with a paintbrush)
8. To help the sealing process run a credit card over it to strengthen it.
9. Let dry.
10. Trace template shapes on dry sandwiched pieces of paper.
11. Cut out branches.
12. Bend the pieces of paper to resemble fern branches. If they are not folding well, spritz with some water and continue to fold and bend. Careful, glue is water-based so if you spray too much it will come apart. If this occurs, reglue.
13. For the base, carve some styrofoam with a knife into an oblong oval/spherical mass shape
14. Apply glue to the styrofoam and cover in moss. Hold down to secure.
15. Insert branches into the base, each takes 9-15 branches depending on the size.

We love seeing your projects! Use #larsmakes to show us how your Staghorn Fern turns out!!